How to use the CDPH Website

Welcome to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Website. We hope you find our site easy to use and navigate. The tabs at the top of the page take you to our topic areas and the Quick Links on the left provide immediate access to the most frequently requested information. For general information about using the Website, see the links below. For information about Web content accessibility, see the Accessibility topic.

Our Search feature is a powerful tool for locating information. If you can't find what you're looking for in a topic area, try using Search. Just enter one or more words in the Search box at the top right hand corner of the page and then click GO or press Enter. The Search results are shown on a separate page and you can sort them by either "relevance" or "date."

This Website contains links to Adobe PDF documents that require the most current version of Adobe Reader to view. The Adobe Acrobat Reader may already be installed on your computer as a "plug-in" or "helper application" for your web browser. To find out, click on the link for the document you are interested in viewing or downloading.

Note: Document types and sizes are shown in parentheses following the link. For example, (PDF 2MB) would mean that a 2-Megabyte PDF document will open when you click the link (size is not shown for documents under 1MB). Other file types may be DOC (MS Word document), XLS (MS Excel Spreadsheet), and PPT (MS PowerPoint presentation).

If the Adobe Acrobat Reader is properly installed on your computer, the Reader will either download or automatically open the PDF document, depending on your browser and how it is configured. If the Adobe Acrobat Reader is not installed on your computer, you can acquire it, free of charge, at the Adobe Acrobat Reader download page.

Downloading Files to Your Computer:

If you're using Internet Explorer on a computer with the Windows operating system, follow the steps below. If you're using a different browser and/or operating system, refer to your product documentation for file download instructions.

Right-click on the link.

From the Windows Short Cut menu, choose Save Target As to save the file on your computer.

Using Screen Readers:

If you are using a screen reader, you may find it will not read some documents in PDF format. Adobe provides a web site that provides information about converting non-accessible PDF files to a format that is useable with a screen reader. The Adobe Access site is located at access.adobe.com, and the tool can also be added to your computer as a "plug-in".

For more information about screen readers, see the Wikipedia topic Screen Reader.

If you are experiencing problems with the CDPH website, please review the following list before you contact us.

Web pages not displaying or features are not available: If your browser is not displaying pages or characters correctly, we recommend that you use either Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), version 4.0 or higher with Service Pack 1 (IE 5.0 preferred) or Netscape, version 4.0 or higher. Older browser versions may cause display difficulties.

Pages and documents display slowly: If pages and documents are taking a long time to display it may be due to one or more of the following:

Web Traffic: The CDPH Website may be experiencing an unusual amount of traffic. Please allow Web pages to download completely before clicking any links on the page.

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP): Your ISP may be experiencing a problem, you may need to contact your ISP.

Your Modem: If you are using a dial-up modem, it may be running at too slow a rate to download web pages, causing the page to timeout before it is completely loaded. Your modem speed may also depend on your service provider.